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Conference paper2010

The potential of airborne laser scanning for monitoring the subalpine birch forest ecotone

Nyström, Mattias; Holmgren, Johan; Olsson, Håkan

Abstract

Climate changes, insect damages, and browsing pressure by herbivores are causing changes of the sub arctic tree line, as well as in the presence of low shrubs of salix species in the mountain heaths above the tree line. These changes are however difficult to monitor with manual methods because of the complex mosaic pattern of the forest-tundra ecotone. The possibility to map this ecotone with airborne laser scanning (ALS) has therefore been tested at a site 6 km SE Abisko in northern Sweden (Lat N 68° 20’, Long E 19° 1’, 400 800 m a.s.l.). ALS point cloud data above ground and 10 m radius field plots were used to estimate regression models for maximum tree height, above ground tree biomass, and canopy closure, with relative RMSE 9.3%, 25.1% and 23.6%, respectively. Preliminary results show a strong potential of ALS as a future method to monitor changes in the arctic tree-line ecotone

Keywords

lidar; laser scanning; tree line; abisko; tundra; mountain birch

Published in

Title: Proceedings Silvilaser 2010 : the 10th International Conference on LiDAR Applications for Assessing Forest Ecosystems : September 14th - 17th, 2010 Freiburg, Germany
Publisher: Albert-Ludwigs- University of Freiburg

Conference

Silvilaser 2010